Reindeer Facts and Fictions

We’ll start with a Christmas confession. The deer we found to illustrate our holiday cards is more likely a white-tail deer than an actual reindeer. But who were we to resist his cheeky smile? After all, sometimes the holidays are best served with a little dose of irony.

Perhaps you’ll ask what’s the difference anyway. A deer is a deer and Santa (cover your ears, kids) is a bit of fiction. But actually there are some wonderful facts and contradictions to explore.

Reindeer are called Caribou in North America. Like many members of the deer family, they shed and re-grow their antlers every year — but caribou are the only species where female sport antlers, too. And here’s where it gets interesting. Mature males lose their antlers as winter begins, while the females keep them through to Spring. So those eight reindeer helping St Nick at Christmas? All had antlers, and therefore all must have been ladies. While we’re not pretending we’ve cracked the Da Vinci code, it’s interesting to consider that the holiday reindeer we always assumed were male must, in fact, have been female.

And Santa was definitely savvy to choose reindeer for his drivers. A study conducted just this year at the University College London established that reindeer are actually the only mammals that can see ultraviolet light, which definitely gives them an edge during snowy nights.

These are but two of our holiday card designs. The whole 14-card collection can be seen online here.